The 2014 WEC/Le Mans thread!

[_Rick_]

"Both Porsche 919′s caught fire in the pit garage during the test, leading to hasty repairs."

Well, that's not the best place to be just a week before LM starts qualifying.

 

[The Boston Dangler]

"Both Porsche 919′s caught fire in the pit garage during the test, leading to hasty repairs."

Well, that's not the best place to be just a week before LM starts qualifying.

that's just race car technology making its way to road cars 😛

 

[Skurge]

http://www.racecar-engineering.com/cars/porsche-919/

http://www.racecar-engineering.com/cars/audi-lmp14/

http://www.racecar-engineering.com/cars/toyota-ts040/

Le Mans teams warned about flexible aerodynamics



in other words, we've decided you're all cheating equally, and what could be more fair that that? carry on.

That is hilarious.

 

[_Rick_]

Well, quali went down pretty predicatably, with the Audis at the back of the hybrid grid.
Still good to see that they had all thee cars on the grid, after Loic Duval's bad crash in practice. Good to hear that he's alright as well.
Audis crashing at Le Mans.....some things never change 😀

If Porsche can maintain their pace advantage over Audi while being as reliable, they're definitely in the running for the podium. If Toyota manage to screw this up, they'll have been quite unlucky. The car is that much faster, looks good with regard to reliability, easily on Audi's level...but, this is Le Mans, and it won't be over until after 24 hours have passed.

Behind that, I have no idea whether the LMP1 P cars are in any way ready to race for even 6 hours without breaking down, and LMP2 is quite often the category that ends up being the most exciting.

GTE-wise Ferraris are quick, but I'm pretty sure a Porsche or Aston will not just keep them honest.

And I hope we can do without loss of life this year...

 

[Phanuel]

I think the only thing that gives Audi a chance in this is that the Toyotas and the Porsches look to have longevity issues with their higher level hybrid systems and lose large amounts of efficiency over a stint.

But yeah, this is Toyota's race to lose and hopefully Porsche has fixed the driveshaft issues from Spa on their cars.

 

[The Boston Dangler]

i am getting psyched up for the big race now. tomorrow morning i'm going to a french bakery for some sweets and belle mademoiselles. 9am eastern start time!

 

[Skurge]

Well, quali went down pretty predicatably, with the Audis at the back of the hybrid grid.
Still good to see that they had all thee cars on the grid, after Loic Duval's bad crash in practice. Good to hear that he's alright as well.
Audis crashing at Le Mans.....some things never change 😀

If Porsche can maintain their pace advantage over Audi while being as reliable, they're definitely in the running for the podium. If Toyota manage to screw this up, they'll have been quite unlucky. The car is that much faster, looks good with regard to reliability, easily on Audi's level...but, this is Le Mans, and it won't be over until after 24 hours have passed.

Behind that, I have no idea whether the LMP1 P cars are in any way ready to race for even 6 hours without breaking down, and LMP2 is quite often the category that ends up being the most exciting.

GTE-wise Ferraris are quick, but I'm pretty sure a Porsche or Aston will not just keep them honest.

And I hope we can do without loss of life this year...

The Audis are not that slow. One of the Audis was on track to set the fastest time before the yellow flag in the last sector. So do not discount them.

 

[_Rick_]

It appears neither Strakka nor Lotus are starting, the former having thrown their car into the wall while testing at Spa, and not having a spare chassis ready, the latter not getting a chassis ready at all.
Too bad, this basically ends competition in the petrol "privateer" LMPs, with only Rebellion racing itself in LMP1-L.
Hopefully they'll get one car to the end, and stay ahead of the LMP2s.

Plus, one car crashed in quali and withdrew.
Final number of starters is 53 + the Nissan Zeod.

 

[The Boston Dangler]

It appears neither Strakka nor Lotus are starting, the former having thrown their car into the wall while testing at Spa, and not having a spare chassis ready, the latter not getting a chassis ready at all.
Too bad, this basically ends competition in the petrol "privateer" LMPs, with only Rebellion racing itself in LMP1-L.
Hopefully they'll get one car to the end, and stay ahead of the LMP2s.

Plus, one car crashed in quali and withdrew.
Final number of starters is 53 + the Nissan Zeod.

financial difficulties have led to a huge number of withdrawals and depletion of lmp2 and gte reserve lists. some, like strakka, didn't have the resources to recover from a setback. others didn't have the funding at all.

overall, wec remains in very good health (better than f1, many argue) and is still getting stronger. the gt's and lmp2 have been a huge success. lmp1 competition has been pretty thin for a while, but this year we have 3 top-notch teams, and that number will double in a couple years.

 

[_Rick_]

financial difficulties have led to a huge number of withdrawals and depletion of lmp2 and gte reserve lists. some, like strakka, didn't have the resources to recover from a setback. others didn't have the funding at all.

overall, wec remains in very good health (better than f1, many argue) and is still getting stronger. the gt's and lmp2 have been a huge success. lmp1 competition has been pretty thin for a while, but this year we have 3 top-notch teams, and that number will double in a couple years.

Well, already I have heard speculation that Audi might retire after this year.
As long as there is competition, VAG doesn't need two entries. Much like the VW brand appears to have taken rallying over from Skoda.

I wonder whether there'a a future for LMP1-L though. Especially with the two teams that wanted to start in the category facing such issues. If they tried to build a cheaper LMP2 entry, their money might be better spent.

T-3 hours until thh flag drops.

 

[The Boston Dangler]

some headlines i've found:

car 79 has it's 3rd driver thrown out, for not completing any night laps this year. they are allowed to compete with only 2 drivers instead of the required 3, and are bumped up to gte-pro without a bronze-rated driver.

the nissan zeod has completed its all-electric lap in warm-up. they reached 300 km/h (187 mph) on electric power thursday. their remaining goal is to complete the race at lmp2 pace.

wec/fia deal has been renewed for another 3 years.

wec might switch to a winter schedule as early as next year, allowing le mans to be the final event of the calendar. le mans already pays double points for results. they're building up the "road to le mans" theme. i like this move, since le mans is the main event of the calendar it should be the title-decider. it will also keep fan enthusiasm for wec building throughout the season, instead of climaxing early.

 

[_Rick_]

Casualties:

14 Porsche was stuck on the limiter, 20 minutes in the pits.
Zeod out, gearbox.
A bit of rain, and the Audi 3, a Ferrari and Toyota 8 crashed slowly but surely into the barriers on the Mulsanne, safety cars out.
One LMP2 out with an engine failure.
Toyota 7 should still be in the lead, Audi and Porsche 20 are fighting it out for the podium.

Edit: it looks like another Ferrari-Audi crash.
Some things never change.

 

[The Boston Dangler]

no rain predicted for the race....surprise monsoon after 1 1/2 hours causes carnage on the mulsanne! we're left with 4 lmp1s to fight it out at the top - toyota, audi, porsche, audi

edit:
huge rain, SC again!

edit:
big pile-up under SC, including karun chandhok again

 

[_Rick_]

The sun has gone down, the Porsches do not have quite the race pace of the other two, with the #7 Toyota being quite a bit quicker than everyone else.

But now, there'll be night time, and the second big phase of attrition, which culminates in the 8 a.m. deadzone, where driver errors start to be quite frequent.

Still, if Porsche can get both 919s to finish with respectable position, for them that's a good result.

Of course, colder tires over night time change tire wear and grip levels, so there may yet be differences in relative pace and position.

 

[The Boston Dangler]

less than 10 hours in, and it's pretty high attrition so far. as usual there's more knockouts than official scoring shows. nearly everyone is getting pretty bruised. despite this, not too many yellows, and after 1000 miles just a few seconds separate the contenders of each class.

the aston-ferrari-chevy fight for gt honors could end up being a classic. there's a 911 only 1 lap back, too, with a lot of time left on the rolex.

 

[The Boston Dangler]

at the 14 hour mark, toyota no. 7 (nakajima) goes down after 10 hours in the lead. audi no.2 (treluyer) is alone on the lead lap, porsche no.20 and audi no.1 are 2 laps back.

 

[Phanuel]

So disappointing for Toyota. And that's why endurance racing is still endurance racing.

 

[_Rick_]

Now the Audi in pits with misfires.
The Porsche and second Audi just unlapped themselves, the former taking the lead, if the Audi stays another 2 minutes. 3.5 hours to go, and the race is blown wide open again.

 

[_Rick_]

Porsche #20 retires from the lead, but was losing 5 seconds per lap on the chasing Audi.
Now it's 2-1-8-14 with essentially 3-4 laps between each.

 

[Skurge]

Well Audi does it again. All the top teams had issues. Shows just how hard everyone, especially Audi and Toyota were pushing.

 

[_Rick_]

Yeah, the new regulations and the extra complexity appears to have caught out everyone over the 24 hours.

Hugely disappointing, that the Toyota couldn't turn its pace into a better result. Disappointing, that both Porsche retired so late in the race.
But, the cars were quite equal over the race distance, which gives me high hopes for the rest of the WEC season, and next years 24 hours, with Nissan back in LMP1.

 

[The Boston Dangler]

what a battle! toyota should have done it, porsche could have done it, but in the end the audi/joest machine kept on ticking. and next year, lotus and nissan join the lmp1 party with ferrari rumored to follow. the new rules are proving to be a huge success, generating interest in participants and on-track action. the same is true for the more affordable lmp2 and gt's. lmp-l, i don't know how that will pan out.

it looks pretty certain that the wec will shift the calendar to start in the autumn and conclude at le mans in june. the hardest part is transitioning from 1 calendar to the other, but it seems they'll eat the pain this year and get it over with. radio le mans had a very candid interview with the IMSA president, and they discussed the difficulties post-merger - the upshot is north american racing could be more aligned with the international scene in the future.

as for coverage, i don't bother with fox. severely fragmented over a website and 2 channels many people don't receive while being completely smothered with ads, not anyone's cup of tea. the official le mans site streamed the uninterrupted world feed with commentary and on-site reporters, and several in-car streams. advertising was minimal. radio le mans streamed audio coverage, imo the best commentary and coverage i've enjoyed, again with minimal ads. there were 2 issues with the world feed video - the video director did a miserable job covering the action, and the overnight coverage was exclusively in-car.

my race of the race:
the corvette-aston martin-ferrari gte pro battle. after the corvette dropped off, the aston and ferrari continued wheel to wheel for most of the race. best move - bruno senna (aston) getting around bruni (ferrari) on the outside of mulsanne. you can't do that!

 

[_Rick_]

I watched it on Eurosport.
I did get sick of the frequent and low variety ads though.
What's next on the WEC calendar?
I hope by then we'll get proper web coverage again, like for Spa.

 

[The Boston Dangler]

next wec race:
6 hours of circuit of the americas, in september D:

next tudor race:
6 hours of watkins glen, june 29